Subverted: The hero, Alice, faces a Mook who boasts that anything she can do, he can do just as well... or better. Alice prepares for a serious fight... only for the Mook to go down like a sack of potatoes as soon as she throws one punch.

Double Subverted: ...Except it turns out that the Mook had the ability to absorb or learn abilities that are learned against him. The next time Alice fights him, she barely survives.

Defied: The Big Bad recoils at the mere thought of giving his servants the hero's abilities; why would he ever give them to ability to overthrow him?

Deconstructed: Mook Chivalry and Conservationof Ninjutsu are not in play, meaning Alice is constantly finding herself outmatched and outnumbered without the edge her powers normally gave her. She is eventually overrun and overwhelmed.

Advertisement:

An arm's race results in improvements on both sides, and Alice, inspired by the mook's example, begins training her own army of Superpowered Red Shirts. She retires from active work and becomes a teacher, allowing her allies to match and even exceeded her skills while retaining their own skills.

Discussed: "I wonder if the Mooks will follow my every move?"

Conversed: ???

Played For Laughs: This Mook can do everything Alice can... except since Alice is an Idiot Hero with no real powers or combat skills, the Mook is functionally useless.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy